June 8, 2011

Calling themselves the #bornfreecrew on Twitter, members of the group closely monitored those whom Mr. Weiner was following, taking it upon themselves to contact young women they believed to be “schoolgirls,” and urging them publicly to stay away from him, according to an analysis of posts on Twitter’s public stream.

Among those warned was Gennette Cordova, the 21-year-old who received the infamous gray-underpants pic. It was the leader of this group Dan Wolfe — @PatriotUSA76 — who caught that pic and passed it on to Andrew Breitbart, touching off all the recent publicity.

In several instances the congressman dropped his online contact with women after they were identified by the crew, suggesting that Mr. Weiner might have been aware of its actions....

Throughout May, [Dan] Wolfe and other members contacted other young women Mr. Weiner was following, including a 16-year-old from California who started a campaign on Twitter to get the congressman to be her prom date.

The next day, [Michael] Stack, posting on Twitter, sent her a message saying in part, “if you’re a minor and he’s following you, well, seems a little creepy if not in ny,” copying @RepWeiner on the post. The next day, on May 18, the girl posted: “Well @RepWeiner unfollowed me.”

The Times characterizes #bornfreecrew as an example "cyberstalkers, who track and criticize [a targeted politician's] every move." That makes Weiner sound like a victim. But monitoring politicians, for the purpose of exposing faults of legitimate interest to the public, has little similarity to following a private citizen for the purpose of horning into her (or his) life.

It would make more sense to say that Weiner was stalking those girls than that Wolfe and Stack were stalking Weiner.

They were definitely stalking Wiener and Wiener almost certainly wasn't stalking the girls. It's just that stalking politicians is a public good and following young girls on twitter who aren't your wife is a wee bit creepy. For what it is worth, the only thing Wiener did that bugs me is lie.

Explain me why lying about peccadilloes is worse then lying about policy and war? It seems Democrats are always lying about their sex lives and Republicans are lying about trashing Medicare and reasons to go into a phony war.

The prima facie on that would would seem to be the fact that he adamantly denied the whole thing, only to come forth and admit the whole thing was his fault. If you can show me where that's true for your other example, I'd love to read about it.

I blame Julian Assange at Wiki-leaks for ending the power of this secret. Breitbart wanted that photo as his insurance policy. Now Mr Breitbart had better hire him a food taster and a team of bodyguards.

Weiner's problem is he needed his real identity to create interest but that made it easy to be caught.

Bingo!

If he just wanted an anonymous relationship on line, he could have done so with much less risk.

But he couldn't have had an anonymous relationship like those he already had. His position and power as a Congressman were what got the girls' attention. You think they would have been as interested in him if he were just some schmo from Queens?

How could anyone be stalking the Weiner? Twitter is a public site. You tweet and people can see what you tweet. If you're a well known person don't air your dirty laundry on facebook or on Twitter, or any social networking site.

Among those warned was Gennette Cordova, the 21-year-old who received the infamous gray-underpants pic.

So this is how it goes according to Althouse: Genette Cordova was "warned" by somebody on Twitter to stay away from the Congressman. She didn't heed the warnings, which seem to be no different than the inane chatter that occurs on Twitter all the time. Therefore, she is complicit in Weiner's behavior and deserves all the maltreatment and harassment she got.

Or maybe you are trying to go a little further, Althouse, and suggest that Cordova was actually soliciting the Congressman in a romantic-- nay, sexual-- way?

Or maybe you are trying to go a little further, Althouse, and suggest that Cordova was actually soliciting the Congressman in a romantic-- nay, sexual-- way?

Oh, get out of your diarrhea-laden high horse.

Cordova waited over a day to give a statement, after scrubbing as much as she could of her web presence. Once she gave a statement, it was a P.R.--type thing--much like the statement given by Ginger Lee, whom we now know was coached by the Weiner.

The simplest explanation is that Ms. Cordoba was engaging in the same behavior the other three women in the story.

Try Occam's Razor Julius. Hint: it isn't for shaving, but for thinking.

They couldn't see anything private; all they could see are the public messages. What they did was keep their eyes open for public behavior, and react to it. In the particular case of the underage girls, they arguably performed a public service and possibly prevented a tragedy.

Which opens the question of why the professional journalists never saw any of this behavior.